


The Long Path

by little_shinra



Series: Shukita Week 2019 [2]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spirits, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Best Friends, Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Child Death, Childhood Friends, Friendship, Gen, Male Friendship, POV First Person, Paranormal, Talking To Dead People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-01-06 11:12:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18387287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_shinra/pseuds/little_shinra
Summary: Every month, under the full moon, Yusuke would see a boy no one else could see...Day 2 of Shukita Week 2019: Late Nights





	The Long Path

On the night of every full moon, a boy would appear to me. I don't know why he does or how he always manages to find my room.

It began when I was in the hospital as a very young boy. I had caught a fever and it wouldn't break, filling my head with fuzz and making sleep nearly impossible. I couldn't eat or drink without pain. My foster father managed to find a doctor late at night and after checking me, I was driven to a hospital.

I stayed in the children's ward, sharing a room with a few others. I barely remember the first couple of days. When the pain started to waver, I could take in the painted, pale room and the other children. Trying to sleep was still a struggle, but something kept me at ease. A hand over mine when I couldn't even open my eyes.

One night, sleepless, I heard someone enter our ward. I kept my eyes closed, pretending to sleep as I listened to footsteps approaching me. A hand covered mine. I opened my eyes and saw a boy close to my age standing next to my bed. He stood on top of a chair and wore a mask over his mouth and a loose hat on his head. He spoke in a quiet, if raspy voice, “Don't worry. It's alright. Are you feeling better? Your hand feels hot.”

I nodded. I could hear a relieved laugh through the mask.

“I’m glad. The nurses said your fever wouldn't break because you were fighting something really bad. Like me.”

He pointed at his head.

“Can you talk?” he asked.

I attempted to speak and the pressure on my throat made me gag, coughing so hard it shook my body. The boy patted my shoulder.

The nurse came in and scolded the boy, sending him back to his room after checking me.

I found out his name was Ren.

-

“I can't come during the day because I have treatments. They make me feel tired after,” Ren told me a couple nights later. “So, I'm always wide awake when everyone else is asleep. It's really boring.”

Ren sat on the edge of my bed, giving it a small bounce. My throat was still swollen, so I didn't attempt to talk this time. My mind was slowly regaining clarity and I slept more easily. Like Ren, I ended up spending the day asleep and sharing the night with him.

In the light of the moon and Ren's keychain flashlight, we played games together and talked of one another's life outside. I wrote my responses on pieces of paper before my voice returned. Ren had both his parents and a pet cat, the latter he missed greatly. He added, though, that it enjoyed playing pranks on him.

The nurses only caught Ren again when we both fell asleep on my bed one night and they found us during morning rounds. That time I was also given a scolding.

It still didn't stop us from our late-night meetings, especially for Ren. He was the one that made the effort to come to me first.

Despite everything.

-

The night before I was to go home, Ren came again, but without his mask and hat. Patches of dark hair spotted his scalp.

“Yusuke, I need your help with something. Can you come with me?”

“Where are we going?”

“I need to get to the entrance.”

“But the nurses...”

“Please?” he begged. “I don't want to go by myself.”

Ren never begged.

“... Okay.”

He took my hand and helped me out of bed. Then I noticed how quiet and dark it was, even with the full moon out. I squinted my eyes, trying to make out the shapes of the beds. Ren pulled me along.

The halls were the same. Eerie quiet. I couldn't hear the clocks or the machines in the other rooms. The nurse station was empty as we passed it.

“Where is everybody?” I asked.

Ren didn't answer, keeping his hand tight around mine as we descended the stairs to the first floor.

A nervous excitement was in his voice as we got to the main doors.

“We're almost there.”

We stood just past the doors and everything was still. Save for a distant sound that followed the lights. Floating golden lights fluttered like fireflies past the gated entrance into the hospital. Almost like a festival in summer, with the sounds of drums and bells playing by them.

“Okay, this is as far as you can go. Go back inside,” Ren loosened his hand.

“W-wait!” I grabbed it back. “I can't just let you go alone! We'll get in trouble!”

“I can't take you with me, Yusuke. You have to go back.”

“Why?”

He looked at me with a sad expression. “It wouldn't be right if I did. Now, go back. We can't stay out here for too long.”

I looked back into the hospital and felt myself physically shrink with fear.

“It's so dark.”

Ren patted my shoulder. “You'll be alright.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

Ren didn't answer and wrapped his arms around me in a hug.

“Goodnight, Yusuke.”

I hugged him tightly in return. “Don't get in trouble, okay?”

“Don't worry. It'll be alright.”

I pulled away and giving Ren one more glance, I returned inside to my bed in the children’s ward. I fell asleep quickly.

-

The next morning, my foster father came to pick me up. I was shed of my hospital clothes and dressed in my own clothes from home. I missed the smell.

As we were heading out, I peeked at the doors of the other rooms, hoping to find Ren to say goodbye. There was one room I couldn't look in as I was shunted away by the adults clustered nearby and my foster father's impatience to leave.

I found out through the hushed voices of the nurses that Ren died the previous evening.

-

“Why are you here?”

“Don't know. Unfinished business I guess.”

“What child has unfinished business?”

Ren rolled on his back. “Tell me and I'll be on my way.”

Since then, I could see the golden lights. I could see them following people, fluttering down empty paths like the lantern lights in parade.

And Ren when the moon is full, unchanged from the night I saw him at the entrance of the hospital.

-

I drew the outline of a girl who carried the golden lights on her shoulders, flecking in her wavy, light hair. Ren kicked his legs up and down in the air as he sat by me on the diner booth, watching my pencil put the girl on paper.

“She's pretty. Got a long way to go.”

“Mmm.”

I don't break my concentration on her. More of her came together. I added and fixed a couple lines, then straightened up. I held the sketch up next to the view of her at her table. Her friend spoke something, and they laughed together. I added more bundles of sparks around her hair and shoulders. All it needed was the colors, which were tragically at home.

“They know you've been staring. You should get going before it gets bad.”

I glanced up to find two pair of suspicious eyes on me. The girl and her friend had their phones in their hands.

I fumbled, and my sketchbook fell flat on the table. Ren ceased swinging his legs.

“I wish I could tell them that it's not what they think,” he bemoaned.

“It can’t be helped.”

I took the receipt left on the table and pulled out the amount from my wallet, placing it in the small tray. I slipped my sketchbook and pencil back into my bag and rise from the booth. Ren was already standing near the booth with the girl and her friend, looking at them with a glum expression.

I speak quietly to him. “Don’t.”

Ren sighed, “Not like they can see me anyway.”

He followed behind as I paid the waiter and exited the diner.

“Will you be adding that to your next group piece?” Ren asked as we walked in the night time streets, referring the sketch I drew.

“We’ll see.”

As easy as it would be to add this drawing to the gallery application, I hesitated to just put any of my artworks in without some thought considered for them. My past works have had the golden lights appear one way or another. And they’ve gained a popular following, setting me for an education at one of the art universities this fall. So, this drawing could go in without anyone batting an eye.

However, it’s too early to consider it for my next gallery set. It needed to be in color, brought to its finest before it could be declared so.

I watched as Ren walked along. If it weren’t for the moonlight’s glow, I would’ve mistaken Ren as a living person. I _have_ mistaken Ren as alive, growing up. But the moon always exposed the truth. It decided when he’d be by my side, for how long, and gave him an ethereal glow to his skin that was akin to the description of Christian angels. I frame him with my fingers. I have wanted for the longest time to capture this serene image. I have drawn him multiple times and tried different mediums, but despite the talent others praise me for, I still haven’t quite captured the scene I see with my eyes.

He looked up at me, unamused. “You’re going to walk into a pole again.”

I turn my head forward and stumble to a stop before I crash into a small standing sign for a restaurant.

“Or a street sign. That works too,” he adds dryly.

His merciless commentary on my wandering mind still holds true to this day.

-

As the full moon passed, Ren faded out. At most, he could visit for four days. He would, even unknowingly, tell me when he was leaving for the month. Always with a goodnight wish. Just as he did that day. 


End file.
